


you up above, me down below

by gingerpunches



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Also Reyes is an Earth baby and no one can convince me otherwise, And now he's here, Bioware please give me more Reyes content, Blood, He had a shitty life and tried to make the most of it, M/M, Major Character Injury, Reyes is Sad, Reyes is a liar, SAM worries and is protective of Reyes, Scott tries and fails then succeeds, vague sexual content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-25 03:28:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10755792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerpunches/pseuds/gingerpunches
Summary: Scott thinks he's a good man, and he couldn't be farther from the truth.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Reyes is a very interesting character, and I'm sad there isn't more content with him in it. This is a VERY big spoiler for the game, so don't read if you don't want spoilers for Reyes' questline.

++++

 

“Reyes, you’ve had that dumbstruck look on your face all day. Who caught your attention this time?”

Reyes snorts, but his hand slips as he’s detaching the barrel of his rifle, sending it skittering across the floor. Keema throws him a knowing smile across the room as it comes to a stop against her foot. She picks it up, tosses it between her hands, then holds it out for him to take as she walks over to sit next to him. He takes it from her but doesn’t smile back, even as she squeezes herself between him and the armrest, her hand coming down to rest on his shoulder. 

“I think I know,” she continues. He glares back at her, pleading with her to just  _ not _ , but her grin gets predatory. Her hand comes up and musses his hair - “Hey, I spent  _ hours _ on that!” - as a laugh bubbles up out of her chest, the sound like bells underwater. 

“It’s the Pathfinder, isn’t it?” she says, slyly. Her palms still strokes down his hair, mussing it every which way. He lets her. “That’s grabbed your heart.”

“Keema,” he sighs. “Please.”

She hums, contemplating. Her fingers start to fix the mess she made of his hair, combing it to the left side how he likes it. She said once that she didn’t understand why humans had hair on their heads, but she still found it beautiful, especially hair like his: soft and shiny, catching even the smallest of breezes no matter the amount of product he deigns to put in it. 

_ “It’s beautiful,” _ she had said that day. It was a dark night, the stars gleaming in unfamiliar constellations above them.  _ “It reflects the stars like a halo. You look beautiful, Reyes.” _

He had laughed it off in the moment, but what she said stuck with him. No one had called him  _ beautiful _ , not now and especially not in the Milky Way - he was a criminal back before the long jump, and that hadn’t changed. If anything, he was worse, and there were parts of him some days that regretted ever coming here. He signed on for change, for adventure, to be someone, but now he - he was -

“He wouldn’t like me, anyway,” he says. He leans away from her hand, scooting away from her to continue checking for the jam in his rifle. She huffs, but lets him go. 

“What’s the matter? Why wouldn’t he?”

“He’s a  _ Pathfinder _ , for one thing,” he grouses. What would he even say? The blush on Ryder’s cheeks was nothing short of adorable when Reyes had winked at him, and he seemed to be more than a little flustered as he flirted back, but he was the Initiative’s last hope of survival here in Andromeda. Why would he have time for a third-rate, lying son-of-a-bitch like Reyes?

Besides, a quick lay isn’t what Reyes is looking for. Sex is nice, and he’s had plenty of it even before the long jump, but being here, trying to run a rebellion against Sloane without giving away his identity leaves little time for flings, let alone something long term. He’s tired of being used, and he doesn’t want to use Ryder like that either. Even if the sex  _ would _ be nice. 

Keema crosses her legs beside him. Even from the corner of his eye, he can see she isn’t convinced. 

“So? He looked interested. And from what I’ve heard, he only flirts with men. You have a chance.”

Reyes sighs. “Can we drop this, please? We’ve had only two conversations, three tops. I’m pretty sure flirting in a bar and giving him metal-melting acid to free a Resistance traitor doesn’t count as serious dating.”

“Well, no,” Keema says. “But he likes you, too. I can see it. You should have heard him talking to his AI friend - I think he said “Wow” when you were walking away, his eyes glued to your - “

“Okay!” Reyes shouts. He stands, gathering his rifle parts with him. “Okay! Let’s talk later, shall we? I have Charlatan things to catch up on - I’m sure you understand.”

Keema laughs at him. “You’re so easy, Reyes.”

He starts to jam rifle parts together quickly, heat rising up his neck. He’s grateful for his dark skin - it hides it well, even as he starts to feel uncomfortable. As soon as the rifle is put together enough to fold in on itself, he straps it to his leg and grabs his datapad, ignoring Keema’s hot, knowing stare as it follows him out the door. He’s sorry he’s ignoring her, but he can’t be in the same room as this conversation takes place. It brings up too much, too many bad memories, parts of him folding on himself trying to protect the last shreds of composure he can muster up as he stalks down the metal streets of Kadara. 

But once he gets down to the slums, his chest constricts when he catches sight of the Pathfinder across the way, loitering by the gate leading out to the badlands. His krogan, Drack, and the turian, Vetra, are standing near him, waiting with him as they get cleared to go out past the ceasefire zone. Thankfully, they don’t notice Reyes as he slips past Tartarus to get closer, hiding behind support columns for the level above them, his steps light and quiet. 

“He’s not who he says he is,” Vetra says, when Reyes creeps closer. He hears Scott snort, and when he peeks his head around the corner, he can see Vetra and Drack have created a sort of shield, putting themselves between Scott and the rest of the slums. Scott is squatting against the wall separating Kadara Port from the rest of the badlands, an unamused look marring his otherwise handsome features. 

“I know,” Scott says, petulantly. “I don’t need a lecture.”

“Well if you know, can you stop flirting with him? He’s not good for you.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Drack drawls. “Let the kid be. If he wants to chase a liar, let him chase a liar.”

Reyes has been called a lot of things in his life, but  _ liar  _ stings the most. He can feel his face tightening up, something like anger or resentment settling in his stomach, heavy like a stone. Even before the long jump, he was called a  _ liar _ , a cheat, a snake - why did he think he could change? Why did he think a new galaxy would be profound enough to have an impact on him? He was still cheating, he was still keeping secrets, with just as many disappointed friends watching him fall. 

He can feel tears prickling behind his eyes, heat climbing up his throat. He spins on his heel to walk away, shame gripping his windpipe, making it hard to breathe.  _ If he wants to chase a liar, let him chase a - _

“Reyes?”

A hand touches his arm. Reyes jerks away, startled, his heart jumping into his throat as it beats a hundred miles a minute. When he turns to see who touched him, he can’t speak, frozen in place, his mouth hanging open as he struggles to catch a breath. 

“You okay?” Scott says. He’s taller than Reyes by only an inch or two, something Reyes didn’t notice when they were both leaning against the bar in Kralla’s Song days ago. He smiles at Reyes, close-lipped but still sincere, his eyes concerned. 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Scott continues. “Need to sit down?”

Reyes clears his throat, plastering a lewd smile on his face. It’s the only natural thing that comes to him - his chest is still pounding, aching with each heartbeat. “Why, Pathfinder. Usually I wait until we’ve been on a couple dates, but if you insist?”

Scott’s skin is dark, but Reyes knows a blush when he sees one. It crawls up Scott’s neck, blotchy and adorable, accentuating his clear, blue eyes perfectly. He smiles through it, albeit now a bit more embarrassed. He tosses his head back towards the gate - thankfully he left Drack and Vetra where they were, out of earshot of their conversation. A small weight lifts off Reyes’ shoulders, his muscles beginning to relax. 

“We’re heading out to follow up on the Remnant Vault,” Scott says. “I’ve got that comm from Vehn, but it doesn’t feel right chasing after the Archon while Kadara still has a water toxicity problem.”

Reyes quirks an eyebrow. “That’s… kind of you. I’m sure you have more pressing needs, though. No need to -”

“No,” Scott interrupts. His voice drops, dangerously low and incredibly attractive. Reyes’ mouth goes dry at the sound. “No, I know. But Kadara is in serious trouble, and it’s something I can fix right now. I can’t leave you while you can still get poisoned from getting a glass of water.”

“Right,” Reyes says. He grins at Scott, sly. “But only for me? What about the rest of Kadara Port? What about Sloane?”

A nervous laugh bubbles out of Scott. His smile turns more toothy, and something in Reyes twists, an emotion that he hasn’t felt in a very long time gripping his heart and squeezing. He’s only known Scott a few days - a week at most - but everything Scott does is alluring, his voice like bells, his eyes like the midday sun reflecting off a bright, blue ocean, beautiful and frightening. Reyes flirts and Scott flirts right back, shy but unafraid, his fingers gentle as they skitter across Reyes’ forearms and hands even as Reyes takes a step back, trying to put distance between them that doesn’t seem to deter Scott in the slightest. 

He  _ wants _ Scott, in ways he hasn’t wanted anyone since… forever. Scott is kind, and caring, and gentle with Reyes in ways no one else has been with him. He’s seen Scott fight - when they found the Roekaar responsible for the ‘Port murders, he’s never been more afraid than he was when he saw Scott blinking in and out of sight, his biotics a hot flare as he unleashed wave after powerful wave against the rogue angara, angry but also protective as he tore them down. But after the fight, he offered to stay and take care of the bodies, to give them burials or to pay respects, even as Jaal scoffed behind him and Reyes waved him off. He  _ cared _ , and he wanted to do right even by the scummiest of exiles here on Kadara. He wanted to do right by them now, offering to clean their water when there was no immediate gain in sight for him or the Initiative. 

Reyes sucks in a breath. It’s bad that he’s fallen so hard for Scott, but he won’t fight it any longer. He couldn’t, anyway. Not when the man is right here, smiling at him, his brow quirked curiously even as Reyes is having an epiphany right in front of him. Which, yeah, he’s probably been standing here staring at Scott awkwardly for longer than necessary, but Scott nods at him, his smile easy and warm. 

Something in Reyes melts. Yeah, he’s doomed.

“Just comm me, huh?” Scott says. Reyes can’t speak, can’t muster up anything suave to spit out that’ll make Scott blush, so he just nods. Scott sends his comm signal to his omnitool then takes off, ignoring the jeers and surprisingly loud catcall Drack makes as they walk through the gate and out into the badlands. 

Reyes turns on his heel and takes the elevator back up to Kadara Port. Keema doesn’t move from her spot on the couch as he slams back into his apartment, his face still hot and his hair starting to droop into his eyes. He must look as flustered as he feels because she just smiles at him knowingly as she puffs from her elegant, angaran-made pipe, her legs still crossed as she lounges, just like he left her. 

“You’ve fallen for him so hard, Reyes,” Keema drawls. He sits down next to her, leaning into the hand she places on his back. “It’s cute.”

“He wouldn’t like me,” he says. 

Keema snorts. “Oh, dear. If you have eyes, you can see the way he looks at you. Don’t kid yourself.”

“I mean, if he knew me. Who I was.”

“The Charlatan?” Keema says. She knocks ash out of her pipe into the small trashcan next to the couch and sits up. He scoots away from her as she goes to cup his face, but he lets her despite it, her strange, alien palms cool against his skin. 

“The Charlatan,” Keema continues, “is not you, Reyes. You created the Charlatan to fight Sloane, and it’s working. You can’t forget that. You’re still yourself. You’re allowed to be you.”

She sounds sad - he takes her hands in his own, folding them in his larger palms. He can’t meet her eyes when she dips her head to catch his.

“There’s something we tell our children when they first find love,” she says, softly. “When they can’t bear to be in that person’s presence, but ache to feel their touch, to hear their words. Would you like to know?”

Reyes swallows thickly and nods. He looks up and meets her eyes - so startlingly different than his own, blue and green and white, like planets, like Earth, reflecting back at him. It hurts to look, but he makes himself hold her stare, feeling something like tears starting to prick behind his eyes. 

“Even if you’re scared,” she says, “or happy or anxious; even if you feel they must hate you or resent you; you have to try. Try not for their sake, but for your own. Because if you don’t, you will end up angry, resenting them for the opportunities you did not take, hating them for things they did not do. So take that leap, Reyes. Follow your heart.”

He wants to laugh. It’s corny, something saccharine and dripping with child-like fantasy, but it - it hits him, right where his heart hurts, where it’s twisting on itself every time he thinks of Scott. He reaches up to scrub at his eyes with the back of his wrist, to try and keep the tears at bay, but his skin comes away warm and wet. He doesn’t remember when he started crying.

“It’s alright, to be afraid,” Keema whispers. She leans in and kisses his wet cheeks. “But don’t back out, Reyes. You came here to be someone. Don’t forget that.”

She leaves him them, taking her datapad and gun with her to go see Sloane. His terminal dings with an incoming comm, blinking incessantly as he sits there; when he goes to answer it, Scott’s excited, breathless voice fills the room. Reyes’ heart picks up speed in his chest as Scott speaks.

“The Vault is activated,” Scott says, his voice high and delighted. Reyes can hear victorious whoops and hollers in the background - Vetra and Drack must be celebrating. 

“Already?” Reyes says. He takes a few steps to the right to look out his window, but even from his high vantage overlooking the  _ Tempest _ as it sits on the landing pad, he can’t see much of a change. He smiles. “I can’t see much from here, Pathfinder.”

“Well, it’s -” Scott says, then snorts. “ _ Duh _ , Reyes. It’s the water mostly. SAM says it’s already dropping to safe drinking levels.”

“Oh, hoh, well if SAM says -”

“Reyes, c’mon,” Scott sighs. He sounds exasperated, but Reyes can hear the smile in his voice. “Drinks later? When I’ve cleaned up a bit?”

Reyes’ heart jumps up into his throat and he nods. Then he remembers this isn’t a vidcall and hums is assent, relieved that Scott doesn’t seem notice how quiet he is. “As long as you’re buying, I’ll meet you at Kralla’s tonight.”

Scott groans. “Hey, I bought the last two times, how is a guy supposed to get a decent date around here?”

_ Date. _ Reyes swallows thickly, trying not to fall over as he sits back in his desk chair. “I don’t know, Pathfinder, you tell me.”

He drops his voice on purpose, using a tone that usually always gets him what he wants. Scott responds, his breaths getting heavy even over the comm. “We can start by using my name, Reyes.”

“ _ Scott _ ,” Reyes says. The comm goes quiet - the both of them say nothing, and Reyes tries his damndest not to breathe. His heart thuds behind his ribs, blood hot in his veins as he thinks of what Scott might say: you’ve gone too far, Reyes, let’s do more than drink, Reyes, I love you, Reyes. But Scott doesn’t say any of these things even as Reyes sits there, wishing for it, waiting for it. 

No. Scott laughs, breathless, his voice cracking as he speaks next. “O-oh. Well, if you say my name like that? I guess I’ll buy this time.”

Reyes swallows the stone that had lodged itself in his windpipe. “Just what I want to hear.”

“Just means you’ll have to be extra nice to me,” Scott says.

“Anything for you.”

Scott laughs again. Reyes laughs, too, and when they say their goodbyes and the comm goes dead, Reyes can’t wipe the stupid smile off his face. He takes the fastest shower he’s taken since he was a teenager and tries to wear clothes that have as little scuff marks and questionable stains as possible, but even in the nicest clothes he could find he still looks like a dusty, scummy exile when he spots Scott standing at the bar hours later in Kralla’s, his hair slicked back and his skin dark against the bright, stark white of his Initiative casual attire. 

He’s beautiful, even under the gaudy pink and blue neon lining the bar. He’s turned enough that Reyes can see the butterfly tattoos crawling up the back of his neck, circling his amp in a flurry of wings that catch the fading light from the sunset and reflect back green, red, blue on black. His eyes catch Reyes before he can make a sneaky entrance - they pin him to the spot, stunning him with how clear and blue they are, only looking at Reyes. 

_ Yeah _ , he thinks. Something in him aches when Scott waves him over, smiling bright, something in him that hasn’t been there before he made the long jump here. Keema’s words are suddenly vivid and loud in his mind, her hands cool and gentle as she strokes his cheeks and shushes him, trying to keep him calm. He can’t back down, can’t walk away, not now and not ever - not when he’s given so much and tried too hard to get here. Not when he’s left everything behind to be someone he couldn’t ever be back home. 

_ Yeah. I guess it’s the big jump here now, too? _ And it is, when he steps up beside Scott, their shoulders touching, Scott’s body warm through his thin shirt, his gaze hot and piercing as he orders Reyes a drink and slides it to him. Their fingers brush when Reyes takes the glass, and the same thing that aches inside him grows and flowers, warm and blossoming in his chest, and yeah, maybe this is what Keema was talking about when she pushed back his hair and told him to not be scared. 

So he sucks in a breath and takes that leap, invites Scott to Sloane’s party, kisses him back, as hot and as deep as Scott kisses him in that dingy little storage of hers, tips Scott’s chin when they’re sitting on the roof of Kralla’s with whiskey on their tongues and all of Reyes’ vulnerables out to bare in the cool, clean breeze of the evening. 

He takes that leap, daring to believe, and he isn’t scared because Scott catches him and  _ believes  _ in him, and that, he thinks, is what he came here to Andromeda to do. 

 

+++


	2. Chapter 2

+++

 

_ He’s a better man than you think  _ Scott says, deep and dark and he means it, he means it, he  _ means _ it even as he’s darting across the room through gunfire to grip Zia’s throat and throw her down, biotics hot, lashing out around him to pin her to the floor as he shoots her between the eyes, quick and merciful, quicker than the deaths he grants the others that had followed her to put Reyes down. 

_ He’s a better man than you think _ Scott says, ringing in Reyes’ mind as he drags his ex-girlfriend’s body down into a ditch, dumping it on top of the bodies of her lackeys, only hours dead but already starting to stink in the hot, humid Kadara air.

_ He’s a better man than you think _ Scott says, but he’s already lying through his teeth as he tells Scott to come down to Sloane’s party, to loosen up for a night, to enjoy some free drinks and maybe Reyes won’t be much of a gentleman and give Scott a pleasant, muscle-aching surprise. 

_ He’s a better man than you think _ and Scott is kissing him, pressing his mouth against his own, his fingers ticklish where they stray across the nape of Reyes’ neck. Reyes licks into his mouth, pleased at the soft groan that rumbles up out of Scott’s chest, and while this may just be a distraction - the woman that had wandered into the storage room outside Sloane’s party sputters, her steps loud and hurried as she turns tail and leaves as quickly as she came - but he can’t stop himself, he can’t pull away from Scott’s sweet mouth even as they start to part. He chases Scott when he steps away, his heart aching in his chest, but Scott’s brow is crooked, his expression stormy and dark, upset and angry and Reyes  _ hurts _ . 

He hurts, but laughs it off, grabs the whiskey he had planted there just in case Scott came looking for him. His real target had been the stash of Oblivion Sloane had planned on rolling out within the next week - he wanted to at least tag the crates while she was distracted so he could track where they were going. 

But Scott was more important. Scott was everything. He made up some bullshit story about the whiskey, reveling in the stupid smile on Scott’s face, basking in Scott’s warmth as he took his hand and lead him out to the roof of Kralla’s. 

He didn’t mean to lie. To cheat. He didn’t want to spit out any more words, anything that would make Scott hurt when he eventually found out. 

He didn’t. He  _ didn’t. _ But he did anyway, kept saying the things he knew he would come to regret, things that would make Scott hate him. His heart is telling him to tell the truth, but he - he can’t - there’s something wriggling in his throat, preventing the words from coming out, and who does he think he is? Who does he think he is, sitting here, staring at the stars with the most wonderful man he’s met in this galaxy and the last one?

There are a thousand things he should say. Millions of words, billions of reasons he should just spit it out and get it over with.  _ I’m the Charlatan, _ he needs to say.  _ I’m not who I say I am, _ he doesn’t say. Instead he sits, shoulder to shoulder with Scott, the evening encroaching upon them like some dark beast, swallowing Reyes up even as Scott shifts next to him, oblivious.

“Thank you,” Scott says, quietly, so quiet he almost misses it over the sounds of the marketplace below them. Reyes turns to him, half-expecting some stupid remark to follow because what does Scott have to thank  _ him _ for?

But nothing comes. Scott is staring ahead, his neck craned up at the sky to see the stars through what little cloud cover is hanging over Kadara. Reyes looks up too, hyper-aware of how close they’re sitting next to each other, how warm Scott is with his thigh pressed against his own. Reyes doesn’t know what to say, but Scott apparently doesn’t expect an answer as he hands the bottle of whiskey to Reyes, holding it out by the neck. 

Reyes knocks back a drink, the whiskey cold on his tongue even as it burns down his throat. A shooting star - or a piece of space debris, who knows - races past in the darkening sky, a streak of white and red and hot, hot heat racing past. Reyes watches as Scott tracks it, his head turning to watch it pass behind them, but then their eyes catch each other and Reyes couldn’t look away if he tried. 

“I have a question,” Reyes says, suddenly. Scott hums, his brow arching curiously, but not saying anything else. Reyes takes another swig of the whiskey and hands it back, his hands starting to shake from something other than the alcohol. He wants to ask because everything about Scott intrigues him, but now, here? With just the two of them?

He’s curious, and he thinks maybe no one has asked Scott before. Thinks no one cared enough to hear what he has to say. 

“You didn’t ask to be Pathfinder,” he says, because  _ he _ cares. “You didn’t even train for it. But you came to Andromeda for a reason.”

“Yeah,” Scott says slowly. Reyes watches as Scott’s expression momentarily shutters - his eyes glass over like they do when SAM is speaking to him. He cocks his head to catch Scott’s attention, silently pleased that it works as Scott’s eyes track to him again, focused on just him.

“Why did you come? To Andromeda.”

Scott’s mouth twitches into something like a smile, but it turns watery quickly, his hand coming up to wipe his face before Reyes can see any tears. Reyes’ heart sinks even as Scott turns back to him, his eyes red-rimmed but grinning.

“I wanted to see something new,” Scott whispers. His voice cracks, but he doesn’t bother to clear his throat to fix it. Reyes holds the whiskey out to him but he doesn’t take it. “I wanted - I lived in my dad’s shadow for so long that I wasn’t Scott. I was just  _ Ryder _ , just the kid who couldn’t get a job because his father was out doing illegal, dangerous AI research. But here, I can… I’m Scott, here. No one cares about the AI in my head any more than they care about other dangers out here.”

Reyes bobs his head. He’s pretty sure he and Scott weren’t in the same part of the galaxy back home - Reyes did a lot of business on Omega and other planets not in Citadel space, while Scott was stuck on the Arcturus relay for the four years he still had a job. But Alec Ryder’s shadow was long and dark, swallowing everything it cast across, even his own family, his children. 

_ Especially  _ his children. 

“And you?”

Reyes jumps. Scott is staring at him, no longer interested in the stars starting to peek from the growing darkness above them. He’s suddenly aware again of how close they are, how Scott’s face is so close to his own, inches away. He remembers their kiss, Scott’s mouth pliant under his own, opening up to him even as they started to part from each other. 

Heat pools in his belly at the thought, heat that races through him and isn’t from fear, from embarrassment. But Scott is still looking at him expectantly, so he swallows and nods, his courage melting away even as he speaks, over six hundred years old and starting to feel it. 

“I came here,” he says, “to be someone.”

Simple. Short, shorter than Scott’s answer, but Scott keeps looking at him, something in his eyes clicking, shifting, like the blueshift of stars as a ship jumps to FTL. Before he can catch himself, Reyes is leaning closer and Scott is too, and before their lips touch Reyes can smell his breath, sweet and bitter with the whiskey, wafting over his face in a quick sigh and then they’re kissing, lips pressing together in a desperate push. 

Quickly, it devolves, but Reyes isn’t complaining even though he would enjoy nothing but Scott’s voice, talking about anything and everything, anything and nothing. With one swipe of his tongue over the seam of Scott’s lips, Scott is opening up to him again, like he did only an hour before at Sloane’s party. A small sound escapes between them, and Reyes doesn’t realise it was  _ him _ before Scott’s hand is cupping the back of his neck, his hair, tipping him back so he’s laid out on the roof of Kralla’s.

He wants to stop once he feels the cool metal of the uneven roof behind him, wants to tell Scott not here, not now, not where Sloane can see. But Scott’s other hand snakes around and lifts Reyes’ leg, carefully shifting it out so he can slide between his knees, their hips coming together as Reyes dips his tongue deeper into Scott’s mouth. This time, Scott moans, his voice deep and reverberating, his fingers curling around Reyes’ thigh, tight enough that he can feel it through the kevlar of his flightsuit. 

But he can’t. When they part for air, the sound of them separating loud even as the night crowd starts to filter into the bar below them, the music pumping up through them, around them, Reyes puts a hand on Scott’s chest as he starts to lean back in. He pushes, only a slight pressure, but Scott stops, his eyes that were only half-lidded opening fully in confusion. 

Hurt flashes across his face - only briefly, but it’s there long enough that Reyes feels guilty for it. He sits up as Scott leans away, but before he can take his hand off Reyes’ thigh Reyes puts his his palm over it, keeping him there and grounding them both. Scott licks his lips and Reyes immediately drops his gaze to watch it, his tongue pink, his lips wet and just his side of swollen from kissing. 

He breathes deep.  _ Not helping, Reyes. _

“Sorry,” Scott whispers. “I didn’t think. You were leaning close, and you smiled back there at Sloane’s party after that kiss, and -”

“No, no!” Reyes says quickly through a surprised, amused laugh. “Scott. No. It’s not that.”

“Oh,” Scott says. The odd, defensive look on his face melts away, and his hand, still under Reyes’ palm, relaxes, his fingers sliding around to grip behind his knee. “So, can we…?”

Reyes kisses him. Not to shut him up, not to change the subject - just to feel him, feel the slight scrape of his stubble across his chin, his soft breaths as he huffs through his nose, his hands coming around to cup Reyes’ jaw and his ass. Scott pulls away this time, a question on his lips, but Reyes shakes his head, just enough, and Scott stops, understanding. 

“Rain check?” Reyes asks. 

It hurts, feeling Scott pull away, his hands slipping off his clothes, dragging his fingers across his shoulder, his chest, a desperate attempt to stay close. Reyes takes his fingers when they finally separate, sitting next to each other like they were before they kissed.

“Just. For a little bit. While I get some things done here, on Kadara.”

Scott nods. “Yeah. I understand.”

“Scott,” Reyes says. He tips Scott’s chin, catching his stare and holding it. He smiles as sweetly as he can as he rubs the pad of his thumb over his lower lip. “Only a while. I’ll still be here. I’ll be here for you, where you can always find me.”

Scott’s voice hikes, getting hopeful. “Yeah?”

Reyes gets up, holding his hand out for Scott to take. He hauls Scott up, using his weight to backpedal, their hands still joined once Scott gets to his feet. He leads them off the roof - down the stairs to the back access, where shuttles come to drop off their cargo when Kralla’s needs refilling. Reyes takes Scott around, in a circle that edges across the open air on the side of the ‘Port to the landing pad, still hidden under the stairs leading up to the higher levels. 

A hiding place, one Reyes uses to keep an eye on the  _ Tempest _ when not in his apartment. Scott ignores it, his attention only on Reyes. A nice feeling, one Reyes might’ve enjoyed if he wasn’t kicking a man that is incredibly attracted to him metaphorically to the curb. 

But he does it anyway, nodding to the ship, his hair bobbing into his face where it was mussed from Scott’s fingers. A silent understanding passes between them, through their skin where they’re still holding hands, palms together. Scott steps away, backwards, not breaking eye contact but their hands falling away, an expression somewhere between sadness and acceptance flashing through him before it’s gone. 

“Comm me?” Scott asks, hopefully. 

Without looking, Reyes opens his omnitool and sends Scott his personal comm channel. SAM chimes with a quiet  _ received _ , Scott’s own omnitool blinking orange and bright on his arm, then wrapping around his wrist as it disappears. Scott smiles, toothy and stupid, a smile Reyes can’t resist. 

“Scott,” he says, low and sultry, and Scott is biting his lip, his cheeks dusty with a dark red blush. It’s delicious. “Anything for you.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Scott breathes. 

“You better hold me,  _ novio _ . I’m going to be awfully lonely without you.”

Scott sputters, but Reyes turns and leaves before he can drag it out any longer. His heart starts to ache again, pounding against his ribs a beat that he’s become accustomed to, but he can’t stay, not with so much to set up, so many lies to weave before Scott steps back onto Kadara. 

When he gets to his apartment, Keema isn’t there. He sheds his clothes, peeling out of them, his skin tingling from the remembered feeling of Scott’s fingers skittering across his clothes. He wanted to continue from where they left off on Kralla’s roof, to drag Scott here, to undress him in the orange sun setting outside and watch him writhe, crook his fingers and watch him melt. Wanted to lick up Scott’s neck, whisper to him the things he’s never heard himself from his own lovers, hold him as he came with his name on Scott’s lips.

_ The Charlatan _ couldn’t, though. Not now. Not with his plan almost in place, Sloane within his grasp, Kadara nearly healed but not quite yet, not from this cancer, this festering wound sitting on a throne forcefully taken from it’s rightful owners. 

_ He’s a better man than you think _ .

_ Oh, honey. You must really like this one, Reyes. _

He does. She was right - she always was. She always had been. She could read him like a book, her hands carding through his hair saying  _ You’re such a window, Reyes, like a pool of water reflecting the stars _ . He’d resented her for it, even now, standing naked in his room, Zia’s body buried in a shallow ditch miles and miles away, killed by a man that his heart sings for, soars for. 

_ He’s a better man than you think _ .

“No,” Reyes says. He collapses back onto his bed, exhausted even though he didn’t do much all day, his heart racing. Scott comes to him in his mind, his hands warm and gentle, his smile like the sun, a thousand suns, stars known and unknown barely comparing to the happiness Reyes has seen on that handsome face.

“I’m not a good man, Scott,” he whispers to the room. The sun sets outside the window, casting shadow across him, leaving him cold, alone. “I’m sorry I have to do this.”

 

+++


	3. Chapter 3

+++

 

And he is. He’s sorry. He wishes he could convey how much - how much he wants to bend at the knee and plead to the dirt at Scott’s feet, but it’s not enough.

As soon as Reyes steps from the shadows, Scott’s expression darkens. He looks Reyes up and down (but not in the good way) and Reyes feels  _ dirty _ , feels the dirtiest he’s been since he landed on this godforsaken rock with nothing in his pockets and only the dim, fading feeling in his heart that somewhere down the line he was going to make a difference here. Scott finally catches his eyes - thankfully his expression hidden from Sloane as she stalks around the cave, antsy and angry - and he doesn’t know what he would do if Sloane saw Scott as he was now, if she would snarl and yell and accuse him of double-crossing.

Reyes thinks maybe he would. Maybe he would turn on Reyes - that look in his eye is distrusting at the very least, and like always, he’s armed, bristling with biotic energy, his fingers itching at his side for the Carnifex always strapped there. It would take nothing for him to throw Sloane to the side with a pulse of energy and whip out his gun and put Reyes down, end his misery, his suffering, every lie he’s ever told in this life and his previous one.

But he doesn’t. He simply says, “They’re one in the same” when Sloane scoffs at Reyes and asks where the Charlatan is, and Reyes burns, in embarrassment and guilt. He grins through it to keep up the ruse for Sloane - who sputters and flares with her own biotic energy - but otherwise stands there, dumbstruck, angry at himself that this had to get this far.

That he has to be here, in the dark, bargaining for a life that may as well be meaningless without Scott in it. 

Scott notices the sniper and doesn’t say anything, though. He watches as Scott catches the glare from the scope in the blackness behind Reyes, SAM probably whispering in his ear the angle of the gun, the aim he has on Sloane, how close the sniper’s finger is to the trigger. But he doesn’t speak, doesn’t move - he lets Reyes and Sloane circle each other, two cats prowling in a ring around an imaginary prize. 

He doesn’t move when the sniper round pierces Sloane’s chest when she jerks to grab her gun. He just stands there, glaring Reyes down, something in his eyes breaking as Reyes tries to laugh it away with Sloane’s body slumped on the ground and her blood hot on the stone; explain it away,  _ This was for peace, Ryder, believe me. _

Scott stays long enough to make sure Sloane is dead and that Reyes will keep his end of the bargain: that Reyes will allow an Initiative outpost, will protect it and its assets, and will make Kadara Port better than it was under Sloane. His expression is blank, devoid of emotion, and Reyes breaks, too, his heart shattering into a hundred million pieces.

He lets Scott go after that. Lets him slip through his grasp, lets him stalk out into the humid air and into his Nomad where his friends were instructed to wait. He doesn’t pull Scott into a kiss like he wanted to, doesn’t hold his hand, doesn’t tell him anything other than  _ I liked the way you looked at me _ and  _ I didn’t want that to change  _ when Scott asked why he lied. 

Scott goes. Reyes gets to Kadara Port that night and doesn’t fire a single bullet, but yet, he shouldn’t have to - no one knows he’s the Charlatan. Scott didn’t say anything, and he’s nowhere to be found, even with the  _ Tempest _ still resting on the landing pad. So Reyes initiates the last leg of his plan, placing Keema as his front, establishing the Charlatan as the ruler of Kadara, with all of the things that entails, including staunch support of the Initiative. 

He stares at the  _ Tempest _ that night, when he finally gets to rest after hours of setup and final tweaks and thousands upon thousands of credits being moved from empty accounts to even fuller ones. It doesn’t move, her hull glowing bright as the sun dips behind the horizon, reflecting shuttle exhaust and the few brighter stars that start to peek out from the darkness above. He thinks about what Scott must be doing, if he’s sitting down reading reports, if he’s looking out his window at Kadara and wondering what Reyes is doing too. 

Maybe he thinks Reyes isn’t worth the energy anymore, or if he’s sitting on his bed like Reyes is, regretting everything he ever said to Reyes, every soft touch, every hesitant kiss, every heartfelt word said between them under the stars. The thought of Scott excites him and hurts him, but before he can truly collapse into bed and hope his dreams carry him away, his terminal pings across the room, angry and insistent. 

He had muted it earlier in the night, mostly because he was tired of the emails Keema kept sending him about what people wanted the Charlatan to do already. He’d muted everyone except Scott, and that’s what drags him out of bed, sitting down at his terminal in nothing but his underwear and a cold, resigned expression on his face. 

Thankfully, Scott doesn’t want a vidcall. It’s an email message, only two words long, two little words that set Reyes’ skin alight, burning across his spine, his shoulders, gripping his heart and giving him just the smallest glimmer of hope he could never wish for or deserve. 

Just a small,  _ Nothing’s changed _ , and Reyes is home again, his shoulder pressed against Scott, sharing a bottle of whiskey that isn’t as glamourous as Reyes lied it would be, staring at the stars overhead, wishing somehow, someday, he could turn to Scott and never have to lie again. Wishing he didn’t have to cage his heart in his chest, repress its song, squelch the fire that burns in him for a man he’s only just met months before. 

He doesn’t seek Scott out the next day, but somehow they end up bumping into each other when Reyes is leaving the throne room, trying to put up an appearance with Keema to throw people off his trail who already suspected him of being the Charlatan. Scott is dressed in his civilian clothes - a bright white ensemble that makes him easy to pick out in a crowd - and before Reyes can steer clear of him, he feels Scott’s hand shoot out and grab his own, stopping him in his tracks, making him turn and look up at Scott even though he desperately doesn’t want to. 

Scott smiles at him, warm and small. Reyes wants to turn away, to run, to get as far away from him as possible, but the hand in his own holds him there, grounds him, steadies his heart and his mind, and without thinking he smiles back. Scott squeezes his fingers and steps away, lets him go as he melts into the crowd to go wish Keema good luck, and Reyes slips away before he can do something stupid - before he can scream in the middle of this crowd of enemies that he’s here, he will never lie again, he wants Scott, wants him to have him and understand him and never let him go. 

He does none of those things. He slinks back to Tartarus where he’s supposed to be. He sits on his dingy couch, accepts the drink already placed on his table, and doesn’t take a sip of it the entire day. Scott doesn’t come to find him, but he doesn’t have to. Reyes approves the order the Nexus sends him to set up an outpost right as it comes, and when he gets the word later that day that ships are breaking atmosphere to set up near one of the Remnant monoliths, he steps outside and watches the  _ Tempest _ break from formation to purposefully fly low enough that Reyes can see from the slums as she navigates the hills and mountains, shiny with hope and purpose, her Pathfinder safely aboard, guiding Kadara to a better future. 

He  _ is _ sorry. He is. But in that moment, he’s proud to have done what he did, proud he backstabbed Sloane and cheated his way to the top. He’s certain apologies will come later, so he’s content to stand there and bask in his achievements, squashing the guilt that starts to bubble, unrepentant, in his belly. 

 

+++


	4. Chapter 4

+++

  
  


_ “Scott will be with you momentarily. Doctor Lexi is reapplying butterfly stitches to a laceration on his left side sustained from the Architect on Kadara.” _

“Right,” Reyes laughs. “The thing everyone was telling him to steer clear of. I did tell him to be careful, didn’t I?”

_ “In not so many words, but yes.” _

“Thanks, SAM.”

_ “You’re welcome, Mr.Vidal.” _

He’s still not used to SAM’s humor. But he doesn’t know what to say, so he sits back on Scott’s bed, unsure of what to do. He hasn’t been aboard the  _ Tempest _ , let alone where Scott sleeps, spends his free time, where he and his crew do movie nights and where he answers Reyes’ emails. It’s a clean room, but sparks of Scott’s personality dot the room, in the photos of his sister and his mother on his desk, in the deck of cards sitting half shuffled on the game table, in the small crystal collection growing on his bedside table. 

He thinks of laying back on this bed where Scott sleeps alone, but the bedroom door swishes open and Reyes scrambles to stand, his gun knocking against his thigh uncomfortably with a weight he doesn’t normally notice. But Scott strides into the room and he’s aware of it, strangely, like Scott is going to care that his boyfriend - are they? Or are they something more? Less? - is standing there, armed, like anything else would be less surprising. 

Scott smiles at him despite it, though, tight and small. It makes Reyes’ heart sink to his feet, heavier than a black hole. Scott murmurs something, quiet enough that Reyes only catches SAM’s name, right before the door slams shut and the maglock slips into place, the interface on the door going from a muted green to an angry red.

Reyes knows instantly what this is about. He holds his hands out, pleading, placating, but Scott shakes his head, resigned as he stands defeated across the room. 

“Scott, I’m sorry, I-”

“You lied. To me.”

Reyes swallows. He nods. He can’t lie, not now. 

Not ever. Not anymore. 

Scott sighs. “Why?”

“Scott, you know why.”

“The Charlatan?” Scott scoffs. His shoulders drop like he’d been carrying a big weight - and maybe he had, with the knowledge of who the Charlatan really was. Now that he knows, he’s pieced it all together, long before he called Reyes here to meet, to  _ work things out _ , as he had put it. 

Hurt passes through Reyes. He did this, he lied and cheated and twisted Scott, made him a pawn, a Queen on his personal chess board, a free agent that had no knowledge what his real purpose was. He pushed Scott to deal with Sloane to force her hand, then punished Kaetus to get her to show herself with only Scott by her side. He wanted her to do it because he knew Scott wouldn’t hurt him, and yet - 

Reyes  _ used _ Scott. In the worst possible way. He deserves to stand here, defeated, facing the wrath he has earned. He deserved this before he ever made the long jump to get here. 

“Say something,” Scott pleads, drawing Reyes back out of his thoughts. Reyes looks at him, their eyes meeting, but can’t hold his stare for long, his eyes skittering away, ashamed. 

“What do you want me to say?” he says.

“Anything,” Scott says. He’s seen Scott cry only once, but he can see his face starting to tighten with the effort of holding back tears. He holds his hands out, pleading to Reyes, and it takes everything he has not to take those gentle, kind hands in his own and kiss away every worry, every lie, every hurt he’s ever caused this man. 

“I could tell you I didn’t mean it,” Reyes breathes. A dam breaks within him and it all comes pouring out, his words his only weapon, his only salve to heal Scott the way he needs. He couldn’t stop if he wanted to. “I could tell you that it was never meant to be you - that it was always going to be me doing this, on my own. That I didn’t need you to push the final pieces into place so I could take over Kadara and bring peace.”

“But what  _ can _ you tell me?” 

Reyes swallows. Scott is small on the other side of the room, standing like he’s being scorned. Reyes takes a step forward, reaching out as he speaks. “I can tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Scott, for doing what I did, for lying to you and for making you a pawn in plans you had no knowledge of. I can’t begin to apologize, Scott, for anything that I’ve done, for what I did, but I am sorry. For all of it. For everything.”

“You said,” Scott chokes out, “that not all of it was a lie.”

“I didn’t lie about you,” Reyes says. He shakes his head, certain. “The Charlatan, my plans, all of that - was a ruse. But how I feel about you, our kiss on top of Kralla’s, I… I would never lie about that, Scott. I wouldn’t lie about how I felt.”

Scott goes through several different emotions almost at once, marring his handsome features as he tries to compose himself. Reyes takes another step, now only a few feet from Scott, still holding his hands out for Scott to take if he wanted to. But Scott doesn’t move and Reyes doesn’t stop. 

He can’t. Not now. Not when that four letter word is hanging on the tip of his tongue, begging to be said, to be sung to the heavens so Scott would never doubt him, never again. 

“Scott,” he says, quietly. Scott sniffles wetly, and it breaks Reyes’ heart that he did this, that he had such a big hand in his grief. His yanks off his gloves with his teeth and tosses them aside before taking Scott’s hands in his own, revelling in the first time he’s held his hands without a barrier between them. “Scott, look at me.”

Scott grips his fingers and looks up at him, eyes red-rimmed. “What?”

Reyes leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his chin. Scott turns his face so the next kiss lands on his lips, and when Reyes feels those warm, plush lips under his own his chest blooms with heat and affection. He knows Scott is still upset, but he’s kissing him back. Reyes has a chance. 

“I have something I need to tell you,” Reyes breathes against Scott’s lips. Scott hums, his eyes still guarded even as he smiles. “Something I think you should have heard a while ago.”

“What’s that?” he asks, hopeful.

He has to. It’s the only truth that sings within him right then, the only thing that comes out of him feathered and bright, an emotion he hasn’t felt since he was young and full of hope for something better. It’s his truth. His only truth.

“I love you,” Reyes says, finally.  “Ever since I saw you.”

Scott grips his fingers tight, his smile turning watery again, the corner of his lips twitching. A tear tracks down his cheek and Reyes reaches up to to wipe it away. Scott leans into his hand as he cups Scott’s jaw, taking a shaky breath before he responds. 

“You love me?” he says. 

Reyes nods. “Yeah. I do. I love you, Scott.”

“Oh,” Scott breathes. Reyes watches as he swallows thickly, a blush forming on his cheeks, dark and adorable. He doesn’t expect an answer - how could he, with all he’s done to Scott? But he had to say something, his heart aching to just let Scott know how he felt, how even through everything, he still went to bed staring out his window, staring at the stars, wondering where Scott was in the cluster, if he was alright, if he was wondering where Reyes was, too. 

He doesn’t want an answer if Scott doesn’t feel the same. He doesn’t want Scott to lose his spark, his  _ self _ , the thing that made him come all the way out here to travel stars unfamiliar to all of them. For him, this may just be a crutch, a fling, and Reyes is alright with that - he can be used like that. 

But he wants Scott to know how he feels. Even if it amounts to nothing, even if Scott kicks him out right now, spaces him before he can get a word in edgewise, he can  _ accept _ that, he - 

“I love you, too,” Scott says. 

Reyes startles. His heart jumps into his throat, making it hard to speak, to breathe. Scott laughs at his expression and kisses him, short and chaste. 

“I got the one up on you,” Scott giggles. 

Reyes slips his hand down Scott’s chest, his other wrapping around his hip to rest on the small of his back. In that moment, he feels their hearts connect, beating as one like a drum thumping between them. 

“Yeah,” Reyes says. A laugh ricochets off his ribs, loud and unlike him. It makes Scott smile, his nose wrinkling and his eyes shining. He leans close and kisses Scott because he can. “Yeah, you did.”

It’s not fixed, of course. They have a lot to talk about, and Reyes still has much to apologize for. He’s done too much, seen too much, to be let off the hook so easily, but… 

Here? Now? Scott is putty in his hands, his arms coming up to circle Reyes’ shoulders as Reyes kisses him, deep and with an emotion he feels pouring into him through Scott’s skin. It burns and it hurts and it feels so  _ right _ \- his heart pounds in is chest, a rhythm he is only now beginning to understand, a rhythm that beats for him, too, in the pulse he feels beating in the chest pressed against his own. 

It would be easy to tip Scott into bed, kissing him up his throat, down his chest, down, down, until he had Scott undressed and writhing on the sheets, begging for any dark desire Reyes would gladly give him. He wants to, too, but he doesn’t, keeping his hands above Scott’s waist, letting him deepen the kiss but not leading him anywhere. He wants to savor this, this small moment between the storms, before Scott has to leave again for the stars. Before he’s back to being Pathfinder and Reyes is back to being the Charlatan.

An ache that’s become familiar beats somewhere behind his ribs, keeping time with his heart. Sometime in his past he would never have dreamed of being in the arms of someone like Scott; sixteen-year old Reyes would have laughed, scoffed, tossed his head and continued on his way, running “errands” for his drugged-up father. Even when he got here to Andromeda, stranded on the Nexus as he was, prepping shuttles and scout vessels just to get the meager rations he was allotted when the Nexus finally locked down, he wouldn’t have dreamed of this. He wasn’t a nice man - never has been - and every relationship hadn’t really been a relationship. Sex was nice, and he wasn’t averse to trying new things (or people), but he came to Andromeda because he bought into the romantic notion of finding a new home, a new place to start, a new place to finally be someone.

_ To be someone _ . 

“I think I found my true reason,” he says, quietly, into Scott’s hair as he snoozes in the crook of his neck. Somehow they’d gotten here, laying on top of the sheets on Scott’s bed, lounging in the fading Kadara sunlight outside the window, but the hows of it don’t really matter - Reyes basks in it, in Scott’s warmth and his soft, steady breaths wafting across his skin. Scott makes a noise in his throat as he sits up, setting his chin on Reyes’ chest so he can look into his eyes. 

“Reason for what?” Scott asks. His brow quirks, curious, an expression that has become almost permanently glued to his face. 

Reyes pushes a stray lock of hair out of Scott’s face, his fingers lightly touching his skin as he traces around his ear, down his jaw, across his lips. A gentle touch that makes Scott smile, his eyes dancing with a fond emotion that makes Reyes’ chest swell with affection. 

“When I came here to Andromeda, I wanted to be someone,” Reyes says. “To be someone I couldn’t back home - back in the Milky Way. I thought I found my reason for being here, fighting Sloane, doing work for the Resistance, now working for the Initiative, but - now?”

Maybe now isn’t the right time. Maybe he should wait until they’ve sorted out the rest of Reyes’ Charlatan business, wait until he’s laid out all of his lies and his deals, the failsafes and contingencies he has in place now, how deep his hold goes in Kadara and how Scott can use it to his advantage. He shouldn’t make this more complicated with his feelings, especially since Scott still has to take off and find the Archon and the Arks. They have too much to do, too much to discuss, too much -

“Now?” Scott asks. 

He should say it. Fuck it. Fuck it  _ all. _

“Now,” Reyes says, “my reason is you.”

It’s  _ stupid _ as hell. He isn’t romantic, hasn’t been since he left Earth when he was eighteen years old with nothing but the clothes on his back and a credit chit with barely enough money to buy him a meal. He’d left his parents behind, severing all contact, and from there on out he vowed to never get attached, to never feel anything deeper than the superficial. It was the only way to survive, and when he got to Omega and established himself as more than just a duct-rat with some smuggling skills, he couldn’t afford any attachments

Attachments meant he was weak - meant he had something to be twisted against him. Even Zia wasn’t anything deeper than a friends-with-benefits deal, something they could come around to and relieve some stress before going separate ways, the two of them too different and too similar for it to work out. 

But Scott - he’s different, different in ways that would deter Reyes otherwise. Reyes sees the furrow of his brow and watches his expression melt into something warm and vulnerable and he hurts, hurts in a pleasant, aching sort of way that makes him want to never let Scott go. That night in Umi’s bar sealed it for him, catching Scott leaning against her bar with a finger of whiskey in his glass and nothing but an uncertain clench to his jaw and a gun strapped to his thigh protecting him from the rest of the bar patrons - protecting him from people like Reyes. He’d seen that anxiety in Scott and instead of twisting it and turning Scott against him, he’d wanted to protect him, to shield him from people like Reyes,  _ from _ Reyes, to keep him at arm’s length to preserve that gentle, helping spirit he saw in Scott’s deep blue eyes. 

Scott doesn’t seem to care how cheesy he’s being, though. His smile gets goofy and he leans up and kisses Reyes, gentle, their breath mingling when he pulls away.

“You know what?” Scott says. Reyes raises a brow, silently curious, and Scott sits up fully, pulling Reyes with him to properly look him in the face. Reyes feels vulnerable even with his heart already bared, but he waits, letting Scott rub his thumbs over Reyes’ knuckles, soothing the both of them. He couldn’t have been more prepared for the words that rush out of Scott, barely a whisper and yet they’re the loudest thing Reyes has ever heard, his heart swelling with affection and warmth, his skin tingling with a feeling he couldn’t ever begin to name.

“I think I love you, too.”

Reyes only ever heard those words two times in his life: once, when his mother was cutting his hair on a chilly morning on Earth, what was to be his last day there, the last day he ever saw her. He can still sometimes feel her fingers as they card through his hair to make chunks of it to cut, her skin thin and cold as she touches him, feeble from a life of abusing and being abused. He’d told her he loved her back but he didn’t mean it, not when he was staring up to the sky wishing for something more, something better, a life worth living and fighting for and being in.

The second time, he was barely Scott’s age, a man with nothing to lose and a smuggling ring as deep and intricate as Aria T’Loak would allow him to keep on her territory in Omega, a man with more credits than he knew what to do with and nothing to spend them on. He was lifting off to go meet a contact in Terminus space when he’d gotten an email on his omnitool from his father. 

He’d heard he’d signed on for the Initiative and wanted to wish him luck. He wanted to see Reyes again, one last time, before he went down for the long nap and left them all behind. Reyes acquiesced but still showed up to his childhood home with a gun on his thigh and his shuttle parked down the street. His father - a faceless man Reyes never bothered to remember - had taken his hand in his own, shaking from its own weight, and had told him he loved him, his mother loved him, that no matter how far away and how far into the future he went, he was still Reyes Vidal, their son, the man they raised to be the best he could be.

He wasn’t, though, and the multiple lovers he had taken after that had never said that four letter word to him. Zia hadn’t, and he had hoped Scott wouldn’t, either. He didn’t want to ruin what they had, what they could be, what they were capable of being.

But Reyes said it first. He’d broken his vow, his heart pulling him towards a promise he never wanted to fulfill for himself. And he can’t resist, he can’t, not now that he has what he wants, he  _ needs _ , in his arms.

“I’m never letting you go,  _ cariño,” _ Reyes says. He tips Scott’s face, kisses him, lets his fingers drift down his jaw, his neck, his chest. “ _ Que nunca podamos separarnos.” _

Scott doesn’t let him leave that night, and Reyes doesn’t complain. He doesn’t think he can go back to Kadara now, set foot onto its metal streets and into its dirty, grimy slums, back to Tartarus where he will run his operation secretly from below. He doesn’t think he can leave this bed when he has Scott writhing below him, whimpering and sweating, his chest heaving with the deep breaths he takes and Reyes’ name a chant on his lips. 

He tips Scott’s legs apart, dips his head between his legs, licks where Scott needs him most, deep and hot that makes Scott cry out. He works his fingers inside him, fucks him open, makes sure he’s relaxed and loose for him, makes sure he’s slick enough before Reyes pushes inside, his own body twitching as he holds back, as he goes slow, as he watches Scott come undone beneath him as he thrusts slow, deep, rocking them both in a rhythm that suits them both. 

He’s in love, and that’s what keeps him there even after their sweat has dried and Scott has drifted to sleep. It runs through him, deep and gripping, holding him there even though the Reyes of two months ago would have ran, would have turned tail and ducked out as soon as Scott’s head hit the pillow, fear overcoming this feeling he’s never had before, never dreamed before, never wished for. 

He’s in love, and Scott loves him back, and when he wakes to Scott smiling at him, his eyes bright and shining, his skin warm and his hands gentle as they push back his hair, he never wants to leave, never wants to lie. He’s in love, and this, right here, is what he traveled six hundred years into the future for.

 

+++


	5. Chapter 5

+++

 

But all good things come with a price, and Scott was never safe with him in the first place.    
  


+++

 

“Okay, okay. I need you to breathe.”

Reyes gets a wet cough in response, blood dribbling over Scott’s lip as he staggers back despite Reyes gripping his arm and his belt to keep him upright. He walks back with Scott until Scott’s legs hit the edge of the nearest couch, Scott’s weight heavy in his hands as he tries to control his fall. It doesn’t work even with the death grip he has on his clothes - Scott hits the back of the couch hard, moaning like he’s being strangled, his hands over the wound in his stomach shiny with blood as his shirt gets a brighter and brighter red. 

“I can’t-”

“Don’t speak,” Reyes snaps. Scott groans again, a hurt, aching thing. It twists Reyes’ heart, but he shushes Scott anyway, his hands coming to press against Scott’s, doing his damndest to keep pressure over his wound. “Scott, I mean it.”

His voice wavers - it never does, and he prides himself on that fact - but now, here, with Scott bleeding too much and his doctor tied up at the docks, he can’t control himself. Something in him is panicking, his chest heaving with heavy, frightened breaths, his mind racing a million miles a minute. His fingers shake even as he pries away Scott’s hands and wraps his arms around his shoulders, trying to keep Scott calm as he shrugs out of his own jacket and presses it, hard, against Scott’s stomach.

A quiet  _ ow _ tumbles out of Scott’s mouth. His fingers tighten around the nape of Reyes’ neck where he’s held on the past couple minutes - his skin slips across Reyes’ own, slick with blood. Reyes’ stomach flips uneasily at the feeling. He’s felt blood, sure, a lot of it being his own, but this is - 

“I can’t feel my limbs,” Scott coughs out. 

Reyes swallows against the lump forming in his throat. There’s so much  _ blood _ . “Scott, I need you to stop talking.”

“Reyes, I…”

And just like that, Scott goes limp.

“Scott, say something,” Reyes says. 

Scott’s head lolls back, his eyes closed, his arms slipping from around Reyes’ shoulders as he droops. Reyes touches his face, panic bubbling up in his chest, his heart fluttering nervously. Scott’s omnitool blinks briefly but Reyes doesn’t dare lift his other hand from where he’s keeping pressure over the wound to check it - a moment passes and the barest relief washes over him as he realizes he doesn’t have to as SAM’s cool, albeit slightly alarmed, voice scrapes over the comm.

_ “Please do not remove pressure from the wound, Mr.Vidal. Doctor T’Perro has - err. She is on her way.” _

The momentary lapse almost makes Reyes laugh, but then he realizes that SAM is probably feeling what Scott feels too, and isn’t that a twist of the knife? He doesn’t get much time to dwell on it before a short, angry Asari is bursting her way into Kralla’s with Drack and Cora right behind her, her expression somewhere between angry and concerned. 

“SAM says he’s been unconscious for only a couple minutes,” she says. He nods because he’s not sure he can form anything resembling words, his throat is so dry with fear. She mumbles something under her breath and crowds in next to him, her hands hovering over Scott for only a moment before she shifts, suddenly a blur of action that he only barely keeps up with.

She doesn’t take his hands away as she scans Scott with her omnitool, but she does put one of hers over his own, the other touching Scott’s forehead, his temple, under his jaw. Only then does she peel his hands away, only slightly wincing at the amount of blood soaking through his jacket as he’d pressed it against Scott’s stomach. Cora hands her a press-band from behind and motions for him to lift Scott’s hips so she can wrap it around him and fasten it over the wound after he lifts Scott’s shirt. 

“Quickly, to the  _ Tempest _ ,” she says. Reyes steps forward and lifts Scott from under one of his arms - Drack motions for him to step away, and he does without question as Drack picks Scott up, more gingerly than Reyes thought a krogan was capable of being. Reyes rushes ahead to make sure the path to the  _ Tempest _ is clear but when he steps outside Kralla’s, he sees Vetra, Liam, and Peebee have already cleared a wide berth across the marketplace, their weapons drawn as they stand next to Reyes’ more trusted Collective members to keep back the onlookers. 

Scott’s doctor - “ _ Lexi, please; only SAM insists on calling me Doctor”  _ \- locks them out of the medbay as soon as Drack walks through the door with Scott in his arms. Reyes doesn’t know what to do with himself as soon as he’s left alone with Scott’s crew; his mind is still racing, his body coiled like a too-tight drum, unsure of where to go and who to talk to. He thinks of slinking off the ship as soon as he can because what else is he supposed to do here, sit around like a worried mother hen? But when he tries to turn down the hall into the cargobay, Liam corners him, bristling with anger, his brow furrowed, his omnibraces still strapped to his wrists, crackling with energy. 

Instantly, he’s on edge. He takes several steps back but Liam follows him - he slaps what he hopes is an easy smile on his face and holds his hands up, placating. 

“Now, Liam,” he says, regretting speaking when his voice breaks. “I’m sure we can work something out. Let’s just -”

“Talk?” Liam snaps. Reyes flinches - Liam doesn’t seem to care. “Is that what you two were doing alone in Kralla’s? Talking?”

“No, we were meeting a contact. They wanted to meet in Kralla’s, and when we walked in the bar was empty. That’s when he got shot.”

Liam scoffs. “Right. By you. SAM says your gun has been fired in the last fifteen minutes - within the timeframe he got shot.”

“To shoot at the  _ shooter _ ,” Reyes snaps back. Liam stalks closer, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. Reyes knocks into the bulkhead framing the doorway to Scott’s room; without thinking, his hand shoots out to fumble with the lock, but the door whooshes open behind him before he can palm the controls. 

“Right,” Liam sneers. “The shooter. You mean you.”

“Why would I shoot him? Do I look like that kind of masochist? I wouldn’t do this to Scott.”

_ “Mr. Kosta. Please refrain from cornering Mr. Vidal any further. Miss Harper -” _

“Shut up, SAM,” Liam says. 

“No,  _ you _ shut up, Kosta,” a voice says. Reyes jumps at the same time Liam turns around to face Cora as she stalks into the room, her biotics snapping around her - the room drops in temperature and Reyes isn’t sure it’s his imagination as she fixes Liam with the coldest glare he’s ever seen. 

Liam snorts and holds his hands up, but he doesn’t move from where he’s backed Reyes into Scott’s desk. Cora nods her head to the side, motioning for Liam to move, and only after a couple seconds of glaring at each other does he take a few steps away. He throws his own glare over his shoulder at Reyes - Reyes frowns, only now realizing he’s shaking where he stands, very aware that he’s standing in a room with his only escape blocked by two people that are very capable of maiming him without breaking a sweat. SAM says something else over his comm but Reyes’ heart is beating so loud in his ears he doesn’t hear it. 

“Sit down,” Cora orders. She points at Scott’s desk chair - Reyes backs up and collapses into it, his shaking hands squeezing the armrests until he feels the muscles in his forearms start to ache. Cora points at Liam and then at the end of Scott’s bed, but when he sits she stays standing, her arms crossing in front of her, her armor creaking. 

“Now,” she continues. She looks at Reyes, calmer. He relaxes when he realizes she isn’t glaring at him. “What happened?”

“He shot Scott, that’s what happened,” Liam mumbles.

“Shut up,” Reyes snaps. “I wouldn’t do that, and you fucking know it.”

“Reyes,” Cora warns.

_ “Oh, Dios mío.” _

“Oh fuck off, Vidal,” Kosta says.

“Both of you!” Cora shouts.

_ “While this is - concerning,”  _ SAM says, pausing only slightly,  _ “Doctor T’Perro has stabilized Scott. He has suffered severe blood loss and a pierced stomach, but she was able to use the blood on-board to keep him from exsanguination.” _

“And his wound?” Cora asks. 

_ “She has performed emergency surgery to keep the wound closed. However, the Tempest is lifting off momentarily for the Nexus. If Mr.Vidal wishes to leave -” _

“No,” Reyes and Cora say at the same time. Liam snorts.

_ “Very well,” _ SAM says. He seems to think about what to say next, but it’s only because Reyes has heard how he and Scott interact that he knows SAM is angry, particularly at Liam.  _ “But please refrain from antagonizing Mr.Vidal any further. Scott will not like it.” _

He goes silent then. Reyes tries not to smirk as Cora fixes her glare on Liam again, but he can feel his lips twitching despite it. Cora turns to him and he wipes the look off his face, his heart picking up speed again, the reality of the situation sinking on him all at once.

“It was a contact,” he says quickly, before Liam or Cora can interrupt him. “For me. They wanted to meet the Charlatan but I didn’t want to show, so I asked Scott to front for me. I showed up right after him, through Umi’s back entrance, and as soon as I walked in the contact got nervous and she shot Scott. He fell back and I shot at her, but she got away. I’m sorry.”

Even though he’s sincere, he can hear how his words start to waver. Liam might take it as a lie, but Cora nods, resolute, and holds her hand out for his gun. He shakily pulls it out and gives it to her - blood smears across the grip from his own hand, blinking in the sunlight filtering in through the window. He looks at his hands, then at his front, and only as he’s realizing how  _ drenched _ in blood does he start to smell it. 

He wants to slap a hand over his mouth, stop breathing,  _ anything _ to get the sharp, gagging tang of wet copper out of his nose, but when he lifts his hand he sees the blood soaking through his glove. He rips them off and throws them across the room, only glancing up to see where they landed when Liam kicks them away from his foot, a somewhat surprised expression melting over his features. 

“I guess you aren’t lying,” Liam says then. Reyes feels his hands start to shake from anger, not panic, and grips the armrests of Scott’s chair again. He wants to punch him, but Cora is standing there like a vigil, a silent guardian overseeing the two of them as they glare at each other. As soon as he made a move, she would have him on his back in an instant, biotics forcing him to the floor before he could blink. 

“I’m a lot of things,” Reyes says instead. “But I wouldn’t do this. SAM was there, too. He can corroborate my side of things.”

“He already did. Kosta just decided to ignore it,” Cora huffs. 

“Yeah, because he’s a  _ cheat _ . I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”

“Then it’s good Scott has biotics, and can throw him further,” Cora says. She motions for Liam to stand, then points behind her out the door when he does. “Go cool down. I’m telling everyone that if they so much as hear that you’re going towards Vidal, they’re allowed to pummel you.”

Liam mumbles something he can’t hear, but he’s out the door and stomping down the hall before he can get too riled up about it. The door hisses shut and locks, courtesy of SAM, and Cora holds out Reyes’ gun again, the barrel pointing towards her. 

“Sorry,” she says. He only takes the gun after he’s wrapped his hand in a kerchief he’s kept in his pocket, wiping the handle off and stuffing it back into its holster. “He’s - pretty protective of Ryder, but in all the wrong ways. There’s a reason why he doesn’t get to go on missions much.”

Reyes nods. “Right. I caught that pattern.”

Cora crosses the distance between them, crouching in front of him and placing her hand on his knee. She tilts her head so he’s forced to look her in the eye, but instead of anger or resentment clouding her eyes, she seems sad. Or resigned, he isn’t sure, but she speaks before he can shake her off or dwell too much on it. 

“You’re a lot of things, Reyes,” she says, quietly. “But I don’t think you’d hurt him. I know you didn’t. Don’t let Kosta get to you - Scott loves you, and he’s a pretty good judge of character.”

“Thanks,” Reyes says, and means it. 

She pats his knee and stands up. “You can use the showers. We can wash your armor, too, but I think only Scott has clothes that might fit you. Come find me up on deck when you’re done?”

Reyes nods. “I will.”

She nods too, then ducks out the door after pointing out the washer and dryer right outside Scott’s room. Reyes scrambles to get out of his clothes as soon as the door hisses shut, struggling not to see the blood still wet across the front of his flightsuit as he finally wiggles out of it, kicking it away from him like it’d been suffocating him. He barely has the capacity to gather it up and shove it into the automatic washer, and when he finally does and watches the water start to stain red, then pink, then clear through the glass of the washer, he calms, a part of him melting away along with the blood. 

The showers on the  _ Tempest _ aren’t particularly large, but the water is hot and no one comes in to bother him. SAM overrides the hot water ration allotted for him, allowing him to scrub his skin raw and pink, the water clear despite feeling like he has blood caked where he can’t see. When he steps out, there’s a towel already waiting for him on the bench - he pats himself dry, combs his hair as best he can with shaking hands, then dresses in his own undershirt and Scott’s pants. 

He finds Cora on the first deck, in the biolabs like she said she’d be. Vetra, Drack and Jaal give him concerned looks as he passes through the research area of the ship, but he ignores them, his skin crawling. He isn’t used to seeing them all at once, not to mention all of them focused on  _ him _ . Everyone seems to be giving him a wide berth, unsure of what to do or what to say to him, and for some reason it pisses him off even as Cora stands from her desk and gives him a small, sympathetic smile. 

She hands him a datapad when he walks up to her. It’s heavy, but not clunky; thicker and more durable than the flimsier ones used on the Nexus, and when he taps it to wake it up he’s already logged in with a username and password Cora has written on a sticky note stuck to the front of it. He snorts when he sees it - username: RVidal, password: kingofkadara - something he wouldn’t have chosen for himself, but he supposes it was mostly to put a smile on his face above anything else. He thanks her quietly and sits back in the chair she offers him, his back to the bank of plants being misted by water across the outermost wall. 

“I figured you’d need something more secure than your omnitool, so,” Cora says, shrugging. “It’s not a terminal, but you can’t use Scott’s - or, anyone else’s for that matter. Too much risk.”

“I appreciate that,” he says. He swipes through the datapad, but it’s blank besides its OS, so he sets it aside, folding his hands against his stomach as he leans back in his chair. 

“Not a problem. Besides, it’ll let you get quicker updates on Scott once we get to the Nexus.”

He nods, a sick feeling crawling up his throat. He swallows it down before he speaks. 

“Right. Because you don’t want me to have access to SAM.”

Cora shakes her head. The words came out of him short and bitter, but she doesn’t seem offended, her body language loose and open. “No. SAM wants to patch you in, but then he would have access to things you probably don’t want anyone seeing. It’s not about you hurting SAM - it’s about SAM hurting  _ you _ .”

_ “Not that I would pry,” _ SAM says over the comm.  _ “But just by being keyed into your omnitool would cause security risks we cannot begin to take, not in the light of Scott’s injury.” _

“I didn’t see that coming,” Reyes sighs. 

“No one is blaming you,” Cora says. She reaches out, her hand coming to rest on his wrist. He wants to yank his arm away but he doesn’t - her touch is cool, like water over a burn, her words even moreso. “Well, Liam is. But I’ve spoken with the rest, and they know what happened. What really happened. SAM’s comm was wide open when Scott got shot.”

“Did SAM feel it, too?”

_ “Yes, although the pain was easy for me to partition. Scott - I tried to numb the pain, but -” _

He goes quiet. Reyes swallows thickly, and Cora bites her lip, leaning away. Reyes rubs his face, trying to calm the panic starting to well up behind his ribs again, but he needs to see Scott, needs to see how he’s doing, if he’s awake, if he hurts. Cora waves to him as he shoots out of his chair and paces out the door, trying to remember which way he needs to go to get down to the medbay, but SAM quietly guides him to the left, towards the bridge and down the ladder. After that he knows where he is - he knocks on the medbay door and is relieved when Doctor T’Perro lets him in after his second knock. 

However, it’s short-lived. Her glare is palpable across the room, and she points to a pump-bottle of anti-bacterial gel before he can get three steps in the door. He obeys, washing his hands with it, then turns to Scott’s still form on the far bed, his face only partially covered with a breathing mask, his arm hooked up to an IV and a blood circulator. 

Scott’s cold when he takes his hand in his own, his palms clammy and his pulse slow. His fingers twitch when Reyes leans down and kisses the top of his hand, but his eyes remain closed and his breathing stays constant, an easy in, out, in again. Doctor T’Perro says she’ll be back in ten minutes - “ _ don’t wake him, Vidal”  _ \- but he doesn’t feel any better without her watching him.

He leans in and kisses Scott’s cheek anyway, pushing his matted hair off his forehead, trying to be gentle and quiet. Scott doesn’t stir, and when Reyes glances down, he sees Scott’s wound under a thick pad of bandages, blood spotting the bright white of the gauze. Nausea suddenly overcomes him, and it takes everything he has not to get up and bolt from the room, his mind telling him he shouldn’t be here, he did this, this is all  _ his _ fault. 

_ “Te amo, _ Scott,” he whispers, rubbing his thumb over Scott’s cool knuckles. The  _ Tempest _ rocks as it drops out of FTL, and SAM quietly announces they’re at the Nexus with a medical team on standby to receive Scott for emergency care. Reyes stands, leaning down to kiss Scott’s cheek again, then steps away, retreating to Scott’s room so no one from the Nexus sees him on the  _ Tempest _ , with Scott. 

He doesn’t leave that night. He lays there in Scott’s bed, spread eagle, thinking of the sound of the gun going off, Scott’s sudden groan and his shaking hands as they had reached out, trying to grab Reyes before he collapsed, blood blotting his pristine white shirt. All the times they had spent together had flashed before Reyes’ eyes, their first kiss, their first  _ real _ kiss, Scott’s gentle smile, his calloused hands, the shy gleam in his eyes as he had ducked his head that first time he’d said he loved Reyes, wanted to be with him, build a life with him here, no matter what it would take. He’d laughed when Reyes had called him the real King of Kadara, had bent his knee and kissed his hand - he’d cried when he showed up on Reyes’ apartment doorstep after SAM had killed him, distraught and angry that his father did this to him, had left him here with his sister in a coma and his body not completely his own. 

Everything about Scott he cherished, and it had almost been ripped away with one bullet, one well-placed gunshot to the gut. His datapad dinged across the room and he answered it, only mildly aware of the words scrolling across the screen because it was from Doctor T’Perro and the surgeon team on the Nexus, confirming to the Pathfinder team that Scott was fine, his wounds were sealed, and he needed only a couple weeks to fully recuperate before being allowed back into combat. SAM says Scott is awake and asking for him, but Reyes doesn’t move - he  _ can’t _ . He can’t step foot on the Nexus, he can’t cross that threshold and meet the man he loves because he’d be shot down or thrown behind bars to be interrogated by Kandros, and he doesn’t know which is worse.

But only after another hour of moping does Scott find  _ him _ . Reyes jumps up and takes his hand as Cora and Jaal help him into his room, holding him up by his arms as he slowly walks to his bed. He smiles at Reyes, weak but genuine, and Reyes can’t help it - he smiles back, cracks off with something like  _ that bullet was meant for me, you know _ , and kisses him, ignoring the embarrassed cough from Jaal behind him. 

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” Scott says, when Cora and Jaal have left the room and Reyes has helped him lay down. Reyes snorts and pets his hair and kisses his cheek, his nose, his eyelids. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,  _ mi amor _ ,” Reyes says. “I put you in that situation in the first place.”

_ “Scott, please do not resist your sleeping medication,” _ SAM suddenly says. Scott groans and Reyes smiles, kissing his hand. 

“Rest,” Reyes says. “We can talk later.”

“Fine,” Scott huffs. “But don’t blame yourself. I know you’re going to, but just… don’t.”

“Anything for you.” 

Reyes helps him out of his clothes, undressing him gingerly, careful of his stitched wound over his stomach and left hip. Then he kisses him slow, licking his lips and his teeth, drawing breathy moans out of Scott until he’s breathless and SAM is insisting Scott rest and not rip his stitches getting excited. Scott mumbles something Reyes doesn’t understand and suddenly drops off, asleep within moments, leaving Reyes to turn down the lights and cuddle in next to Scott, pressing his face into Scott’s shoulders and wrapping his arms around him, not wanting to let him go even on a ship far away from those that hurt him. 

_ Everything comes with a price, _ he thinks. His heart aches and hurts, pulling every which way, wanting to leave Scott now to protect him, wanting to never let him go to protect him, wanting to go out there right now, the consequences be damned, and hunt the shooter down, rip her apart and put her back together again just to watch her suffer. He wants to abandon his post on Kadara and never leave Scott’s side, wants to move all his work onto the  _ Tempest _ so he’ll always be there to put down any threat that dares to challenge him, challenge  _ Scott. _

But he doesn’t. This is his price, his bargain with the life he needs to live and the one he wants to live. He set out to make Andromeda his new home, the place where he could actually be someone, and now he’s finally paying for his choices, for abandoning the Nexus, for killing Sloane in cold blood and for lying to Scott through his teeth. This is how Andromeda repays him, and if he wants to keep Scott, he’s going to keep paying it, over and over, just to be here, in Scott’s bed, smelling his heavy scent and feeling his soft breathing against the cage of his arms. 

To be here, to feel this? He will pay it. He  _ will _ . 

  
+++

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I - dislike Liam. He's incredibly reckless, he sold Nexus data and pushed his problem onto Ryder, he calls Vetra irresponsible for bringing Sid to Andromeda, and when he's faced with the consequences, his excuse is always "well back in crisis response...". So I'm sorry to Liam fans - just my onion.


End file.
